"Help!" said Todd; "oh, help!"
"You go to the d—l!" said the man. "The captain is washed overboard, and we are all going to the bottom, so I am one who likes to take a little spirits with him to qualify the water that one may be obliged to swallow. That's it. Steady, craft, steady."
Practised as this man no doubt was in the art of keeping his footing upon an undulating surface, the pitching of the ship was so tremendous, that even he was thrown to the cabin floor with considerable violence, and had no easy task to rise again.
"No!" cried Todd, finding that positive fright lent him strength, "you do not mean that?"
"Mean what, you old sinner?"
"That we shall be lost?"
The man nodded, and having opened a little cupboard, he brought out a little bladder of spirits, and placing it to his lips, he drank a large quantity, while he held by the cupboard door to keep himself from falling.
"That will do," he said, as he dropped the bladder to the floor, and then, after several unsuccessful efforts to do so, he scrambled upon deck again.
"I, too, will drink," said Todd; "oh, yes, I will drink. I feel that if anything will give me strength to bear the horrors of the night, it will be my old and well-tried friend, brandy."
He cast his eyes upon the bladder of spirits that the sailor had thrown to the floor. The spirit was slowly weltering out of the bladder, and running in a stream across the cabin. As the odour of it saluted the nose of Todd, he exclaimed,—